Date: FRIDAY, 1st February, 2019

This social group meets six times a year: February, April, June, August, October, December. It's made up of a bunch of HIV-positive gay men (and some friends) meet up in Soho and go on a pub crawl. In many respects this is entirely ordinary: there are hundreds of gay men living with HIV drinking in the gay bars of Soho every evening. What's different is that at the Poz Pub Crawl we will be there as openly HIV-positive gay men. And we’ll be wearing red.

So why are we doing it?

Although about one in eight gay men in London is living with HIV, and the numbers are continuing to rise, the visibility of HIV has decreased in recent years. That means that many gay men believe that they don’t know anyone who has HIV, and myths and misconceptions about HIV are given the opportunity to flourish. By being out there and visible, we have the opportunity to acknowledge that people with HIV are the people standing shoulder to shoulder with you in our bars and clubs – and we hope that by doing this we may challenge the stigma that many men living with HIV encounter. More than that, judging by the way that the our first couple of year of pub-crawls have gone, we can expect to have a fun, sociable and supportive evening.

Is this HIV-Positive Pride?

Many of us have taken a sexual risk at some point in our lives. Although I don’t feel 'proud' of my HIV status, I don’t feel like I should be made to feel ashamed either. I’ll take responsibility for it and just try to be honest about it. Like coming out of the closet about being gay, coming out about your HIV status can also be relief. Carrying secrets can be a heavy burden. Being open about your status in public may encourage others to think about their own attitudes and their own behaviour.

Why red?

We want this to be a fun, casual, social event. So, without having to build an attendance list and know exactly who's coming, we need a way of identifying each other. We chose red because we thought it was a colour that most people would have something of in their wardrobe but not so common that we'll struggle to identify each other. You don’t have to wear red to join us, but we will be much more visible if you do. From the first Poz Pub Crawl we made quite an impact; standing on the stairs at Comptons and looking down there was a sea of red t-shirts.

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